PSA Campaign – Spring Final

PSA Campaign

English 11 Final Project 2015

Directions: You have read four large texts over the course of your junior year: The Great Gatsby, The Glass Castle, The Things They Carried, and To Kill a Mockingbird. You will create a PSA Campaign to promote a common theme of To Kill a Mockingbird, The Things They Carried, and one other text we’ve read as a class. Your PSA Campaign must include a witty campaign slogan, a 60-90 second video, and an 8½”x11” full color image advertising your campaign. Finally, you will present your campaign to the class on Tuesday May 19th and Wednesday May 20th.

Campaign Slogan – 20 Points

Think of a Campaign Slogan as a pre-twitter hashtag: According to Wikipedia, a slogan is “a memorable motto or phrase used as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose.” Once you’ve identified a common theme between To Kill a Mockingbird, The Things They Carried,and The Glass Castle or The Great Gatsby, you will rephrase the theme into a catchy campaign slogan to be emphasized in your video and print advertisements.

Good campaign slogans tap into core human wants, needs, and values: those things that everyone wants and can agree on. These values are also usually emotional, generating a “deep-down” response from your audience.

Once you have sketched out the basics of your campaign slogan and tapped into core human wants and needs, you will need to phrase your slogan in a way that makes it easy to remember. It needs to be short enough to be said in one breath, and snappy enough to be easy to say over and over again.

Memorable slogans often use short “phrase bursts,” a staccato style that breaks up a longer sentence into easily recalled phrases. The slogans below use this style:

Video Advertisement – 50 Points

You will design your video advertisement to air on national television, before a YouTube video, or in a movie theater. To create a strong PSA, follow these seven steps:

What do you want the world to know? In other words, what common theme from the two texts will you communicate to your audience? Keep in mind that strong PSAs stick to only one idea and advocate for social change.

Fact time! Use statistics, facts, or examples (real life or literary) to support your message.

Consider your audience. Who are you trying to rally to action? What are their needs, preferences, or things that might turn them off? What action do you want them to take?

Grab your audience’s attention! Use visual effects, humor, the element of surprise, or play on their emotions – but avoid scare tactics.

Create a script. Strong PSAs usually have five to seven concise statements leading up to the campaign slogan.

Film and edit your video advertisement to be between sixty to ninety seconds long. Don’t just show a straight stream of video. Cut to different images, movements, animations, etc. to hold your audiences attention. Include music to set the tone, but don’t let it drown out your message.

Print Advertisement – 30 Points

You should design your print advertisement to be a billboard, a magazine advertisement, a stadium sign, an Internet advertisement, a newspaper advertisement, or anything else you can think of. The print advertisement should mirror the tone and message of your video advertisement, but since it is a static image it needs to be powerful. Your campaign slogan must be written somewhere on your advertisement, but the size and placement of your slogan is up to you. Aside from your slogan, you should have as little text as possible. The image should be most prominent.

Presentation – 50 Points

On the day of your presentation, you will show your video advertisement and your print advertisement to the class. You will then explain the reasoning behind your campaign using three textual evidence chunks (main idea, textual evidence, analysis) from each text. Your presentation grade will reflect your ability to use textual evidence from all three texts to support your campaign slogan. Each presentation will be approximately 5 to 7 minutes.

Presentation Outline

Video Advertisement – Embedded in presentation, or link included in presentation.

Print Advertisement – image included in presentation.

Common Theme -> Slogan – How does your slogan reflect the common theme? Be prepared to explain during your presentation.

Three Textual Evidence Chunks – To Kill A Mockingbird(include the theme on each slide)

Three Textual Evidence Chunks – The Things They Carried

Three Textual Evidence Chunks – The Glass Castle OR The Great Gatsby (include the theme on each slide)